Equal
by Fading Grace
Summary: What would happen if Tamaki and Kyouya were forced to compete? Eventual KT.
1. Chapter 1

This one's going to take a while to get out, but I think it'll be worth the wait. Eventually TamakiKyouya... 

And away we go.

* * *

The cell phone rang just a split-second before the sunlight hit it from Kyouya's east-facing windows. 

Kyouya fumbled with it for two rings, and then dragged it under the covers with him. It took another ring to work out how the flipping-motion should best be achieved.

His voice was choked with sleep, but surprisingly level. "It's only fair to inform the caller that _their soul will burn in the fires of Hell_."

"Kyouya…"

The covers folded back, and Kyouya squinted up at the blurry mass of what might have been his ceiling. "Tamaki? What's wrong?"

"Bad. Bad, bad things. Very bad." Tamaki's voice was low and wavering and unsure, and one out of three parts being normal weren't good odds.

"What?" Kyouya tried to sit up, failed magnificently, and went through a complicated system of locks to let the sunlight in. "What time is it?"

"Early," Tamaki sniffled. "It's early. I'm sorry for calling. Um."

The rest of the fog dried up double-time. Tamaki _never_ said 'um', because Tamaki always knew _exactly_ what he was saying. "Tamaki. Tell me what is wrong."

"It's Grandmother. Something new. Another condition."

Kyouya fought a wave of dark portent at the unexpected news. He had never predicted that the old matriarch could actually invent a new level to the gauntlet. "An addendum to the agreement? _Now_?"

"Yes. And… I don't think I can do it this time, Kyouya."

His mind was racing ahead, but he needed actual information. He groped around for his glasses and they brought the world into focus. "Give me facts."

"She was – the last time we met, she asked me about my grades, and I said I was second in the year. And she did that scary eyebrow-frown thing, and asked if I thought that was the very best I could do and it was good enough to be second-best."

Kyouya froze halfway through buttoning up his shirt. Stuck between his cheekbone and shoulder, the cell phone creaked.

"And the lawyers emailed me early, early this morning, and I just now saw. Kyouya…" There was a long pause, and more frightened sounds from the other end of the line. "I have to be top in the class to be included in the family."

Kyouya slowly held the phone away from his ear and stared at the crest on his blue blazer.

From a long way off, he heard, "Kyouya? Kyouya?"

He brought the mouthpiece close and said, "I see." The phone snapped shut and ended the call.

And then he dressed with the same practiced movements he had always used and went to school.

----------

Classes passed normally, apart from Tamaki shooting him panicked glances and trying to pass him notes every five minutes.

It wasn't hard for Kyouya to ignore him.

But at the Club, it all multiplied tenfold.

Kyouya pushed his glasses up his nose and said, "I'll send in the next round of clients. Don't feel obligated to stand and receive them."

One of the twins slid just a bit further into the plush armchair and smirked. "Oh, never fear, Shadow-chan. We don't."

Another one, nestled in his brother's lap and attempting to tickle the other's chin with his nose, glanced over. He pointed out distractedly, "You've got a king on you."

Kyouya bent his head to examine the forlorn Tamaki wrapped around his lower legs, and then tapped his pen on a column on in his notebook. "Yes. On that note, I've been forced to shift Tamaki's assignations for today, and you two will carry the brunt of the overflow."

The obligatory groan rose up, and Kyouya moved to leave. His legs didn't budge.

He held still, and said patiently, "Tamaki."

The other boy flinched, and looked up with wide eyes.

"I'll accomplish nothing if I cannot move."

Tamaki pulled his Neglected and Abandoned faces, both rolled into one.

Kyouya gestured at Haruhi, and she came over forthwith. She said, "D'you need something?"

Kyouya waited for Tamaki to react per norm, and, when he did not, recovered by saying, "I am incapacitated. Will you please help Hikaru and Kaoru move shop, and then escort the next several clients to them?"

She blinked down at Tamaki, shrugged, and said, "Sure, okay."

And so the Host Club proceeded.

This was put to an end when Kyouya observed, "If you won't accept clients, you should be studying."

All of the other members lost the thread of their respective operations when this was enough to send Tamaki home.

Kyouya watched out the window to be sure Tamaki had gone, and then turned back to the silent room and waved them on.

At the end of the Club's session, the members crowded close with suppressed questions.

Kyouya made sure that they would hear and understand the first time around, and then announced, "Tamaki has been informed that he must maintain the highest grade in the second-year class, in much the same way Haruhi must earn her scholarship."

There was a collective gasp, or the body-language equivalent of such.

One of the twins said, "That would make the two of you-"

"-Rivals," they finished in unison. They both winced at the same moment.

"That sucks," the one that had spoken second concluded.

Kyouya, having completed his duties for the day, packed his things and went home as though most of the world hadn't just begun to crumble.

----------

After another day of refusing to discuss anything with Tamaki beyond scheduling clients and the weather, Kyouya stood at the back of a room that was steadily emptying of girls. The notebook in his hands was full of figures that probably had a wider margin of error than ever before.

Haruhi stepped up next to him, and they watched the last few stragglers trickle out. She said, "Everything's been a bit hectic since yesterday."

Kyouya made a distracted sound of agreement in the back of his throat and worked out another little discrepancy in his math.

She let the silence between them smooth out completely before venturing, "Tamaki's calmed down, a little."

Another sound. Kyouya resolutely kept busy.

"He was freaking out yesterday, but now he just seems… in shock, I suppose. Despondent."

Kyouya didn't respond to that one.

She looked directly at him, and her voice became almost sharp. "Do I _really_ have to point out that this'll hurt his commission rate, just to make you discuss it with me?"

Kyouya snapped the notebook closed with one hand and said coolly, "The situation has changed. Any equilibrium we might have had is completely upset. What else is there to discuss?"

She watched him with a sympathetic worry, and seemed to step back from the immediate problem.

At length, when it was getting close to the time when she needed to leave in order to catch her bus, Haruhi asked, "What are you going to do?"

Black eyebrows crept together, and then drew back. "What I must."

"I can live with that," she admitted. She began to walk away, and then turned back. Very seriously, she said, "So long as there is a difference between what you _must_ do and what you _want_ to do."

She left, leaving Kyouya with a barely-audible 'Good luck'.

----------

Ten minutes later, Kyouya gave up on the daily calculations and called his driver.

As he was climbing into the backseat, strong arms shoved him far over and something blond and intrusive clambered in behind.

Kyouya straightened his glasses as Tamaki spoke to the driver. "Hey, Asuka. Can you drop me off, too?"

Kyouya didn't comment as they pulled out of the Ouran grounds. Tamaki didn't speak, either, but he sat tense and rigid, fists cautiously curling and uncurling on his knees.

And, finally, when they approached his house, Tamaki asked, "What are we going to do?" The tension might have been cut with a knife.

Kyouya shook his head and looked out at the houses that surrounded Tamaki's. "What we have to do."

Tamaki laid his hand on Kyouya's elbow, and squeezed it in surprise. "What? But... now I have to be the top student for Grandmother, and you have to be top for… um…"

"To suit my own ends," Kyouya finished for him, saving the mention of his father.

"Right! And that just-" Tamaki cut himself off, made a worried noise and swallowed it, and then said, "Those don't mix."

"So it would seem," Kyouya acknowledged. The car turned into Tamaki's driveway.

Tamaki whined, "So, so, what are we going to do?"

They crept to a stop near the front door of Tamaki's home. Kyouya said, in a hollow, aloof voice, "We compete."

The car idled, and Tamaki stared at him in outright horror. Kyouya wouldn't turn to look at his rival.

And then Tamaki rubbed a hand over his face and climbed out of the car. He leaned back inside and said, "We're not finished talking about this. Thanks, Asuka, you can go."

The car shook with the force of the door closing, and then Kyouya was pulling out his notebook and revising the day's figures with absolute precision.

He couldn't afford to let this affect his performance, after all. Now more than ever.

He'd never had a true _rival_ before… and he didn't know exactly what to expect.


	2. Chapter 2

Five days passed.

No one began a conversation with Tamaki on their own. It was left to Tamaki to set the topic and tone and everything, because no one else could think about anything besides why, exactly, he wasn't talking to Kyouya.

The Club existed in an awkward, buzzy hush, waiting for the other shoe to drop. All of the girls knew that something was wrong between the parents of the Club, but not much beyond that.

And not a single one of the actual members were willing to gossip or trade theories about it.

No one dared talk to Kyouya at all.

But all good things must come to an end.

It happened in the middle of a Monday, the Club's busiest day, when girls were trying to overcome the weekend withdrawal symptoms, in the form of boot heels marching angrily up. to contront the vice president.

"Kyouya," Tamaki said, no-nonsense and impatient. He wasn't smiling. He held both his hands on his hips.

Kyouya looked up at the stern voice. The entire rest of the room fell flat in a wave, girls nudging other girls to be quiet and _listen_.

Tamaki's chin rose a centimeter, and he made eye contact with his best friend, and then he beamed. His greeting was knocked up two octaves and much louder, amended to, "Hi! Hey, hey, Kyouya!"

The rest of the room relaxed, soothed by this familiar face.

Tamaki brightly bounced the two steps to invade Kyouya's personal space. Right in his ear, facing the opposite way, that serious tone came back. "Can we talk?"

Kyouya glanced pointedly around the room. "Not here." The girls were even now trying to eavesdrop.

He wouldn't take a dismissal, and clenched his jaw. "Then we can go to another room. But we need to talk."

Tamaki turned on his heels and walked out, grinning and bobbing short bows to the princesses who asked where he was going.

Kyouya was only two steps behind, conscious of the fact that he had deliberately screened his rival's calls and texts and avoided eye contact for a week.

When they shared every single class, every single day.

And they used to be _together_ through all of that.

They walked out of the large receiving room and down the hall to a smaller, closer, dark, and unused classroom.

Tamaki opened the door and stepped back to let Kyouya go in first, treating him like a client. He closed the door once he was inside, crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned back against the solid oak, watching his friend with a downward twist to his mouth that wasn't nearly on-purpose enough to be a pout.

Kyouya waited for a few seconds, but Tamaki wasn't going to move. So, his glasses slid further up his nose and he switched into defensive mode. "What's wrong? Is it something in the Club? I've re-worked the figures, if you're concerned."

Tamaki rolled his shoulders back, pushed away from the wall. "That's not the problem, Kyouya." His arms came uncrossed, and gestured around to the four walls. "We can't do this. We can't. It's _not going to work_."

Kyouya frowned in confusion that was close to honest, leaned his weight onto one foot, didn't need to clear his throat or even pause to be sure it would come out level and straight. "It will have to work."

Tamaki was starting to whine. "It _won't_."

"We both have the ability," Kyouya said reasonably, flippantly.

Tamaki's arm started to rise high enough to tub his temple with frustration, but he thought better of it. He was trying to keep his temper. "Kyouya, don't. You're like this."

"Like what?"

Tamaki pouted, and this time it _was_ on purpose and just an artifice. "Don't act like that with me. I know better."

Kyouya frowned, and the vague, innocent confusion dropped off. He said obviously, "We both need this too much to surrender."

They both stood and looked at each other, blue eyes much more frustrated than black.

Kyouya pushed his glasses higher again and glanced down at the notebook clutched in bloodless fingers. "I need to head back. Appointments will be missed and disorganized, at this rate." He walked past his rival with clean, controlled steps, pulled the door open but was careful not to hit the motionless other boy, and walked out into the hall.

As he was shutting the door behind him, Tamaki's low, desperate voice hissed quietly, "Kyouya, I won't let this happen!"

The door clicked shut and Kyouya went back to juggling the Club's schedule, because Kyouya would.

* * *

Another day passed before anyone tried to bring it up again. 

Kyouya was standing at the back of the Club's room, watching the sunlight from the windows behind him part and come together on the other side of his body as though he wasn't standing there at all, and reflecting on the other theories about light he had learned in physics class. In the back of his mind, every formula was worked and reworked and tested for mistakes in memory.

He didn't see her come up. Haruhi stood with him and surveyed his kingdom. Their shoulders might have touched, if she wasn't so small.

They were both quiet for a long time, and then she spoke as though they were standing in the elevator on a long trip and needed to force some kind of conversation. "So… did you two come up with a plan?"

He felt her eyes on him, surreptitious and careful. He kept any recognition or interest from his voice. "A plan for what?"

She grinned, and tilted her head back and to the side, looking up at him with big, amused eyes. "Nothing doing. How are you going to ingeniously cheat the system?" When he didn't give any indication of having heard her speak, she ribbed him some more. "I won't tell. I expect it might be more fun to watch if I know what I'm seeing."

Kyouya didn't play into it, though he noted with some satisfaction that her time as a host was manifesting in order to manipulate. He rewarded her efforts. "It has already been settled. We will compete."

Her grin faltered. "What?"

He remembered a note he'd written in the margins of the appointment roster earlier that day. "The illustrious Miss Anou has requested you. Do you feel ready for a new client?"

Her eyebrows drew together, off-balance and upended. "You're best friends!"

He shook his head, pulled his glasses off, and reached into his pocket for the monogrammed cloth used for cleaning them. He stared out at the blurry room, and not at her. "The scales of Justice are blind. If only one of us can win, only one will."

She colored red, scowled at him, debated over the pros and cons of beating him with her shoe, and then left without pushing the issue.

Kyouya went back to contemplating the light.

* * *

Kyouya was finishing his history essay, slipping it into his backpack with too many textbooks to sneak a few study breaks during class. 

Fuyumi, visiting for dinner, flounced into his bedroom. "Kyouya! How is my favoritest, littlest brother?"

He sighed, took his glasses off, and rubbed a circle into his temple. "Considerably worse than the last time you ask me that."

She stopped short of giving him a huge hug, and changed course to sit next to him on the couch. "What's gone wrong, then?"

The glasses slid back into place, and his chin moved thoughtfully back and forth. Slowly, he admitted, "Tamaki and I are now rivals."

She blinked, nonplussed. She was quiet for a few seconds, and then laughed in her full, bright way. "I'm thinking of the wrong thing. I must have gotten confused, because I thought Tamaki was that lovely boy. The blond one, from France?"

Kyouya glared sullenly at his coffee table, until his sister put a warm hand on his knee and made him look at her. Her eyes were the same shade as his, but she made them much warmer.

"How did this happen?" Fuyumi asked softly.

He moved his fingers, a nervous habit related to the notes he constantly took. "His grandmother plans to write him out of the family if he is not first in the class."

She sighed, pressing a random, sympathetic pattern into the soft flesh above and below his knee.

"There's no other way," she said, without any hopeful inflection.

"Neither of us could forgive the other for a forfeit," he said, eyes moving behind his glasses, reading off an internal script. "This is too important, and both of us know it."

Quiet and soft and careful, she pressed, "And you're just going to give up? Let him go?"

"I can't do anything else." He sounded disgusted; he put his hands together and tightened his fingers until they hurt. "His grandmother is immovable."

The fingers squeezed and fell away. She suggested, knowing the answer already, "You might ask Father."

"I won't."

She sat up straight and looked towards his wide windows, trying to distance herself from the conversation because she knew that she was too empathetic for her bother's good. "This position is untenable."

"I know that better than most," Kyouya hissed under his breath, shoulders tensed and locked in place.

She shook her head and stood up. Her leg had been pressed against his from hip to knee, and he only noticed it when her heat was gone. Fuyumi straightened her skirt and gave a regretful smile.

A hand touched his forehead. "I remember when you were so small, Kyouya. I took care of you when you were sick."

He closed his eyes and didn't lean into the touch. He simply glowered solemnly down at the table, letting her work out her maternal instincts independently.

"I wish I could still do that," she hummed sadly. She went to the door, and turned back before she left. "I hope this is all overcome by events, Kyouya. For Tamaki's sake, if nothing else."

The door clicked shut, and Kyouya said, "Don't we all."


	3. Chapter 3

It was nearing the end of the Club's session, but Hunny and Mori were still entertaining a client when Tamaki loomed over Kyouya's workspace, blocking the light. He figured out his offense quickly enough, though, and shuffled out of the way, moving his weight from one foot to the other.

"Kyouya?"

"Yes, Tamaki," Kyouya said, tallying up the projected weekly numbers.

It took his rival a while to work up to his next words. "Can I reduce my time in the Club after school."

Kyouya glanced up at Tamaki over the black rim of his glasses. He sat up straight, pushing them back into place, and watched Tamaki with the Club's paperwork spread around him like dry leaves. He wouldn't be taking these piles and applications home, tonight, because his bookbag was already close to splitting its seams.

He said, reasonably, "Of course. When can we expect you from now on?"

Tamaki bit his lip, and his eyebrows crashed together. He winced pre-emptively. "About three-thirty?"

Kyouya leaned back over the paper. "I'll reschedule accordingly."

"It'll give me an extra hour," Tamaki explained desperately.

"Yes," Kyouya agreed.

"To study."

"I understand."

Tamaki fidgeted there for half a minute more, watching Kyouya work down a list of invoices.

"Sorry."

Once he'd gone, Kyouya pushed his glasses up to rub the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger.

Then, he went back to work.

* * *

"Hey, Shadow-chan," the twins purred, one leaning forward over each of Kyouya's shoulders and smiling. Their matching grins implied many, many things.

Kyouya was writing, head turning with a steady cadence to compare the list of applicants to the list of the approved. "Hello," he said, half-distracted. Because they didn't back out of his breathing space, he put on his placatory tone, developed for dealing with former-business-owners. "I will email you tomorrow's client list; it's not finalized at this point."

Warm hands pressed into the mahogany of his desk as the twins managed to lean even closer.

"No."

"Listen."

"What we want is more…"

"Intimate."

Kyouya pushed the half-finished list away, to focus on the conversation in stereo. "We've had this discussion."

The one on the right snickered. "Not that."

"Just some alone time." This was murmured, nose to Kyouya's temple and lips to his ear, in direct contradiction of the other's reassurances.

Kyouya considered his options. Ignore them to finish the list now, rather than detracting from scheduled studying, or go with them.

In the first scenario, they would probably stoop so low as parroting the issue (serious enough that they recognized the need for privacy) to the rest of the Club in the room. In the second, Kyouya slept half an hour less and listened to the twins trying to proposition him.

He led the way to a small room, mostly insulated from the sound of the music room.

Too eager to keep his peace, the boy who had followed Kyouya more closely spoke. "What are you going to do?"

Innocently, and with vague disinterest, Kyouya asked, "About what?" without turning to look at them.

"The scores," the other said.

"The latest _class-ranking-affecting_ scores."

When Kyouya didn't give any sign of comprehension, the second added, "They were posted during first period.

"Lost us _our_ bet."

"No, Hikaru. Remember? I entered us in other pools, too."

Hikaru looked up, as though the memory was written across the inside of his eyes. He smiled, shoulder jostling his brother's. To Kyouya, he explain proudly, "We're exploring the tactic of outflanking people."

"Separate factions working together are more maneuverable than one," Kyouya observed politely, and because he knew tactics as well as the next military commander.

They both stared at him. "Wait, what?" Hikaru asked, alarmed.

"Did you just insinuate something?" Kaoru said, chasing on the heels of his brother's words.

"Like maybe you and Tamaki are collaborating to get the kind of scores you did?"

The silence in the room was rigid and frozen.

Kaoru wilted. "Or maybe not."

"Yeah, definitely not." Hikaru agreed.

"But you have to…" Kaoru trailed off, trying to find the words.

They both spoke at once, without glancing at each other to collaborate first. Because he was listening for it, Kyouya noted that Hikaru entered a fraction later than Kaoru.

"We mean, you _tied_."

"Exactly the same score," Hikaru said, in case Kyouya's lack of reaction meant that he had forgotten the meaning of the word.

When the silence had been stretched to breaking point, Kyouya gave some ground. "I read the same results. Considerably earlier than first period today."

"He's matching you, though."

"It's not like you could have expected it."

"So what are you going to do?"

Kyouya thought that he spoke evenly and calmly, though in retrospect, he must not have sounded as convincing as he intended. "What can I do?"

Abruptly, the door burst open. Tamaki strode in, lips turned down in what looked dangerously like pout. He planted himself solidly between his rival and the twins.

He scolded, "Stop it. Leave him alone."

They both stared at him, surprised. "We weren't doing anything…"

"Just stop it. Can't you tell?"

They left, creeping out and glancing between the superior Club officers. The door stood open, enough to let in light and sound from the Club outside.

Kyouya knew that Tamaki was looking at him, now. He could feel the weight of the expectant smile, waiting for approval or thanks.

Kyouya didn't meet his rival's eyes. Eavesdropping wouldn't be rewarded.

Tamaki didn't try to call him back when Kyouya walked out without acknowledging him.

* * *

Kyouya was nearly finished with his homework when his phone vibrated and gave out an unmistakable, dying bleat. He flipped it open immediately, read the text on the screen, and flipped it shut again.

An equation lay half-formed on his paper, but he was nearly out the door.

Father was in his massive home office, bent over quarterly reports and scrutinizing them closely. He didn't look up as Kyouya walked stiffly into the center of the room and stood stock still.

His low, clean voice cut through all of that. "An unexpected thing happened today. I imagine it interests you."

"It does, sir," Kyouya intoned obediently. He wasn't only agreeing because it was required, but because anything that Father thought would interest him was either good or bad, but seldom anywhere in between.

"I spoke to Suoh Yuzuru, who raved about his son's perfect score on the latest test."

Kyouya's back tensed even further, but he didn't flinch. "Yes, sir. Results were posted earlier today."

"What were your results," Father demanded flatly.

_Perfect._ "Satisfactory, sir. Equal to Suoh's."

"And you are still first in the class."

Kyouya paused a moment to collect his thoughts, and then explained, "Suoh-kun cannot overtake me unless his scores are higher. I am first in the class."

Kyouya didn't explain that his lead was a slim five-point margin. He had learned long before not to show Father his hand, especially if it was a poor one.

Father hadn't once looked up from his reports. Now, he seemed to become absorbed in them once more.

Kyouya remained, not moving a muscle.

After the ritual of reaffirming his dominion over his son, Father said offhandedly, "You're dismissed. Study."

Something hot and dangerous flared in Kyouya's chest.

His carefully modulated voice said, "Yes, sir," and he went out into the hall.

Then he went to finish his math homework and study, because Father had ordered it.

* * *

At lunch, Kyouya's laptop informed him of a new recording. For security purposes, the cell phone calls made or received by Club members were recorded and sent directly to Kyouya. Naturally, he deleted most of them without listening – he only pried if he had reason to believe the member had a personal problem that affected their performance.

Their consent was right in article 13, section 3, of the cursory contract each of them signed to become members.

Kyouya opened the file and gave the columns a perfunctory glance – _3:14__ Suoh outgoing to contactlist:Grandmother_ – then jacked a set of headphones into the laptop and tapped the touchpad when the mouse was over the green arrow.

Tamaki spoke the same on the phone. Kyouya had always been mildly impressed, since his rudimentary studies of human social behavior implied that the lack of visual contact influenced the cadence of conversation and method for conveying emotion.

But Tamaki almost always sounded the same.

Now, he was subdued. "Grandmother? I'd like to speak with you. If you can take time from your day."

"Yes, yes," an older, dry-husk voice snapped. "What is it?"

"Test results were released yesterday."

"My son informed me of the results."

"Oh. Well. It's just."

"He was more vague about the value of the score when measured against the rest of the students' performances."

"Yes. I understand."

"What was the mean score."

"Eighty-four percent."

"The median."

"Seventy-eight."

"I assume that the highest was yours."

"Yes, Grandmother."

"The next?"

"It's… Um. It's the same."

"Elucidate."

"Another student had the same score."

"I see. That explains the wide gap between median and mean."

"Yes, Grandmother."

"Tamaki."

"Yes?"

"_The best_. Not _one of_ the best."

There was a click, but the recording had another minute left. A third of it passed in relative quiet, but Tamaki was breathing into the receiver, hanging on a dead line.

Then, he said, "Kyouya," and Kyouya had to restrain himself from glancing around for his rival nearby.

"Kyouya," Tamaki said, and then, "I know you listen to things like this. I know you're listening."

Kyouya quickly evaluated the confidence level he would invest behind that, were he on Tamaki's end, and determines that Tamaki hadn't been more that thirty-percent confident at the time of the recording.

But Tamaki spoke again, and Kyouya remembered that Tamaki put very little store by statistical probability.

"You should know. I should. Tell you."

Long seconds of white noise, not even breathing, and Kyouya counted down the last fifteen seconds on the screen.

"I can't… won't… I can't keep asking."

Kyouya is already going through the automatic motions for deleting the file when he hears, "Sorry. I trust you."

He tapped the touchpad, and the entire conversation never happened.

_I trust you._

He shouldn't.


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

The Club opened on time, shortly after the end of classes.

Tamaki wasn't there.

Kyouya waited fifteen minutes before calling in the lo-jack on Tamaki's cell phone and tracing it to a room near the West Library.

It was dimly lit with a golden glow, and Kyouya started speaking before he had the door open completely. "If you aren't going to come, call ahead so that I-"

Tamaki sat at a spacious writing desk, books stacked haphazardly. Two of them lay facedown, keeping his place and snapping the spines. His blond hair didn't shine, his healthy tan was thin over a sallow tint.

Tamaki turned around slowly, only vaguely interested. His blue eyes were ringed by red.

Kyouya had never seen him so unpolished.

He allowed himself a moment of shock, and then asked curtly, "When did you last sleep?"

Tamaki's mouth moved as he worked out what the words meant, suddenly letting the fact of his second language show through. "What? Sorry." He waved to the page he had been scribbling on. "Math test tomorrow."

Kyouya corrected him reflexively. "Two days."

Tamaki's eyes drifted to the left, but snapped back when he tried to refocus. "Hm?"

"That test is in two days."

"Days?" Tamaki echoed, as though he couldn't work out what the word meant, and then shrugged and shook his head obviously. "No, it's tomorrow. Thursday."

"It's Tuesday, Tamaki."

The sound of his name bounced around the small room and made the blond tense up, and then reach to pull at pages and pages of notes, distractedly trying to organize or glance through them all. Softly, he said, "Oh."

Kyouya watched him impassively. With his clipped, informing-Tamaki-of-something-he-won't-like voice, he added, "And it's three-thirty."

"Oh," Tamaki repeated, not listening. Then, it caught up. "Oh, Club." He stared at all of his notes in surprise, and tried to stand up. "Um. I'll go."

Kyouya crossed the room in two steps and set a firm hand on his rival's shoulder, keeping his sitting. He wouldn't have been able to stand for long on his own. "Tamaki."

"Really." Tamaki ran fingers through his hair, as though that would restore the customary shine. "Give me a minute. Can't disappoint the princesses," he said with a joking, almost bitter, but mostly just tired tone.

"You need sleep, Tamaki." Kyouya went with Tamaki's next attempt to get out of the chair, holding his shoulder and elbow. He supported the majority of both their weight, in the end. Tamaki was swaying, trying to balance in a tilting world.

Finally, without even moving to take a step, Tamaki closed his eyes and rested his forehead on Kyouya's shoulder, despite their similar height. He chuckled hoarsely, and agreed, "I need sleep."

"Your driver will take you home." Kyouya started to pull away, hand going for his phone.

Tamaki's hands closed, strong and vice-like on his upper arms, to hold him in place. Tamaki mumbled, "I want to sleep _here_."

"You can't," Kyouya said bluntly, and then needed a reason. "We're at school."

"People sleep at school all the time," Tamaki pointed out wryly.

"Tamaki."

"Just a while." Tamaki held on tighter when Kyouya tried to move. "Kyouya. Please."

Kyouya stopped moving, but his voice was harder, and carried a warning. "Tamaki."

"I miss you." It was sudden, and quiet, and plain. Tamaki was just making sure that Kyouya already knew.

He did, so he said, "I know."

"I hate this."

Robotic repetition. Kyouya's last defence. "I know."

"So can't I just sleep?" Tamaki pressed. "For a second?"

Kyouya pulled back, breaking Tamaki's hold too easily. He turned to face away, pressing his call phone to his ear and speed-dailing Tamaki's driver.

"Kyouya," Tamaki whined, but he couldn't keep standing by himself. He slumped back into his chair.

Kyouya gave the faceless employee – even he wasn't an Ootori employee – directions to Tamaki's den, and on proper care procedures afterward. He made it very clear that Tamaki only needed sleep; for no reason would he be kept at home sick. He clapped the phone shut. "Sleep at home, Tamaki."

"Heartless," Tamaki muttered to himself, shocked at his rival. It was an epiphany. "You're heartless."

"I know," Kyouya said. Robotic repetition.

"Oh, God. Don't say that," The anger had burned out before it truly began. "You're not allowed to say that like you believe it."

"I have to return," Kyouya said, hand on the doorknob. "I left Haruhi in charge of the Club."

"Kyouya!" Tamaki called, too burnt out to give chase.

Outside, before he shut the door, Kyouya said, "Go to sleep, Tamaki." He paused, and added dismissively, "And eat something."

He shut the door and went back to fulfill his duties.

* * *

Kyouya stayed at the Club and apologized to the clients he had lined up for Tamaki. He pledged to reschedule them within the week, even though that would push the other appointments around and squeeze the last drop of free time out of Tamaki's working day.

Then, when they understood that Tamaki still loved them, but could not see them today, the clients left and Kyouya was busily trying to fit new appointments in sideways to Tamaki's next-day schedule.

Hunny watched him through two of Mori's clients, and eventually hopped off the couch-turned-Empire-State-Building (Hunny was Faye Wray for this game, and Mori was… well.) He bounced closer, and scaled a moderately priceless pedestal to reach Kyouya's eye-level.

"Tama's not here?" Hunny said, and the inflection fully earned the question mark.

"He's not feeling well," Kyouya answered easily.

"Sick?"

"No. Tired."

"Oh." Hunny pulled a flower out of the careful arrangement in the vase on the pedestal, then jumped down to the floor, then used the water still dripping from the stem to draw a small, surprisingly intricate, sun on a tabletop. He said innocently, "He's looked tired, I guess."

A few quick, finishing touches, and then Hunny was tucking the drying stem behind his ear and beaming. "Less shiny," he explained merrily, and then skipped back to Mori and the girls waiting to give Hunny new sweeties and cakes.

Kyouya watched him go and was too clever to let Hunny manipulate him. He could cut through _cute_ like pulling a petal from a flower.

* * *

Kyouya didn't risk it until he was in the car behind – what had Tamaki called him? – Asuka in the front seat.

He said, "I'll be making a call," and Asuka nodded smartly, accepting the implications that he should choose a path inside satellite range and without tunnels and the soundproof divide should be stuck up between them.

Kyouya dialed the number for the first time, though he'd memorized it the day he'd heard about Tamaki's agreement.

It rang twice, and then a dry-husk voice dropped into his ear. "Ootori Kyouya, I presume."

"Hello, Suoh ?," Kyouya said solicitously, because he recognized the power of a name. "I realize that we haven't spoken for many months. Please excuse the interruption. Can you find time to discuss a business proposal with me?"

Kyouya knew that she was retired, that she didn't do anything all day but go over her son's administration of the school with a red pen. That was for her own mollification, no one else was waiting on it.

But it was polite to give her the window, even though it implied weakness on her part if she couldn't reschedule him in on short notice like this.

She said, "If I remember correctly, you signed a missive that implied you would not contact me with any _business proposals_."

"Yes, I did," Kyouya agreed. "But I believe that the missive also stipulated that I could interfere when the agreement overstepped its bounds and entered the realm of _my_ interest."

"Say your piece and I'll take it into consideration."

Kyouya knew that this meant he couldn't make a difference in her opinion if he wrote a dissertation. He said, "Stop. Now. You ask too much."

"Your own conditions for inheritance have been threatened, you mean," she snorted companionably, because she believed that she understood Kyouya and his priorities.

Kyouya liked it when people assumed that they understood him, because then they stopped looking for any deeper motives. In this case, however, it wouldn't help his argument.

He said pointedly, "Tamaki nearly collapsed of exhaustion earlier today."

"Nearly?"

"He couldn't remember what day it was."

She didn't say anything to that, but the silence sounded sulky.

He instructed, "Repeal the addendum or run your only prospective heir into the ground."

"Who would want a weak heir?" she demanded sharply. "If he can't cope with a little extra effort."

This was why Kyouya preferred dealing with anyone else to dealing with Father. This was a cold, clear, sharp, and safe kind of anger, flooding through and seeping into his voice.

"He's already done more than this is worth to either of you."

"If you wish for a solution to this, Ootori Kyouya," she said, with accusation on her tongue, "why don't _you_ concede?"

"You don't know the effort he is exerting in this," Kyouya said sternly. "You think you understand, but you don't."

_You couldn't do half of what he's already invested in this._

That was less diplomatic than Kyouya was willing to appear. He settled on, "There are other factors, here. It would be wise to withdraw until you can investigate fully."

There was a long pause, and then she came back with a smirk that leaked through the speaker. "You're bluffing."

The line clicked and died.

Later, the recorded conversation turned up on Kyouya's computer. It cut out after mentioning a business proposal, and Kyouya wondered for a while how she had transferred the call to a secure line without his noticing.

But, right after the call, he didn't know about that. He was busy wondering about other things.

* * *

Another day passed.

Kyouya should have been inside, studying for the math test the next day, because Tamaki would have a perfect score and Kyouya needed to have the same.

Instead, he had taken a book outside, and he was sitting on a squat, ornate, stone bench and watching Fuyumi prune her rosebushes.

He skimmed the paragraphs, planning the analytical essay in the back of his mind and occasionally copying down notes and useful quotations. His older sister collected flowers for an arrangement in the basket over her arm, pausing every two minutes to glance openly at him.

Finally, she pushed back her straw hat and huffed, "Is there something I should be pressing you to tell me about, Kyouya?"

He didn't look up. He was about ready to write the essay itself, but he was putting that off until he could get inside to his laptop. "I spoke to Tamaki's grandmother earlier today."

Fuyumi's smile was blinding, even without seeing it directly. "And you asked her to stop this ridiculous rival nonsense."

Kyouya considered telling her that it wasn't nonsense, but it really was, so he just said, "She called my bluff. It wasn't worth anything."

She was snip-snipping at her garden again. "Well, _were_ you bluffing?"

He pressed his lips together and pushed his glasses up his nose. The sun kept catching the lens the wrong way and hitting him in the eye. When he straightened his neck and watched his sister, the angle was better.

"No," she guessed finally. "Whatever you said, you weren't bluffing."

"In physics," he reminded her absently, "the equation for work is force applied times distance moved. No matter how much effort is expended, no work has been done if nothing changes."

"Science test tomorrow?" she guessed.

"Math."

"Oh." She stood up from her hunched crouch, holding her back stiffly, though she didn't crack it like a commoner might. She collected her shears and her basket and hiked across the grass to sit next to him.

"I could give you advice," she said, contemplating the sun as it sank lower in the sky. It would set, soon, and then they would be expected inside for dinner. "But you won't like it. And it'll cost you."

Kyouya was already sitting astride the bench, using the concrete as a low desk, and now he gathered his work and set it behind him. He held his arms out and rolled his wrists, command and invitation both.

She smiled sweetly and shifted so that her back was to him. He started high, thumbs pressing into the knots of her shoulders, careful not to tangle or pull on her hair.

After a few seconds to make sure he wouldn't stop, Fuyumi said, "The fact that you called. It's worth something. It would be, to him."

Kyouya pressed a little harder and started migrating down. He said, "You're right. I don't like it."

She laughed. "I know. But, have you? Talked to him, I mean. About any of this."

"No."

"Right. Sorry. I keep getting him confused for that blond best friend of yours."

He was halfway down her back. Very patiently, he explained, "It wouldn't help anything."

"It might help _him_."

"Letting him adapt to working alone would help. If he stays so dependent on others-" Kyouya consciously gentled his hands, kept them from pressing too hard.

"He's always been surrounded by people giving him support and encouragement," Fuyumi said, paving over his unfinished sentence. The afternoon heat was fading, leaving the black hair at her temples damp with sweat.

"That's his own fault."

"No, Kyouya. It's yours. You're an enabler. Who was always at the center of Tamaki's support?"

Kyouya finished rubbing the knots out of his sister's lower back. "I was," he admitted. "We should go inside. Dinner will be served shortly."

She climbed off the bench and took up her gardening things while Kyouya retrieved the neat pile of papers and worksheets.

As they trudged through the grounds and up to the mansion, Fuyumi counseled, "Tell him that you tried. He'll know that you're not giving up, at least, so he shouldn't, either."

Kyouya readjusted his glasses on his nose in a gesture that his sister apparently interpreted as noncommittal.

She bumped his upper arm with her shoulder. "You have a very powerful personality, little brother of mine. This will work out."

"In physics, do you know the equation for power?"

"I don't care. Do you know the definition of the word?"

Power is work done over the time it took to do.

And since no work was done…


End file.
